With more than one million page views and more than 4,000 items, this blog provides news and commentary on public policy, business and economic issues related to the $3 billion California stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). David Jensen, a retired California newsman, has published this blog since January 2005. His email address is djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Imagine this headline popping up on the Internet and in the
New York Times in about four years:

“$6 Billion for ‘Price Gouging' Stem Cell Therapy”

The possibility of such a news story is not all that
fanciful -- given the growing tension and anger over exorbitant drug prices being
set by a variety of Big Pharma firms. The likelihood of such a report and its
impact is a matter for careful consideration by the 29 directors of the $3
billion California stem cell agency.

They are presiding over an effort that will cost the Golden
State’s taxpayers roughly $6 billion by 2020. Nominally, the agency is giving out $3 billion in research
awards. However, the cost is approximately doubled because the state is
borrowing money to finance the research, a move approved by voters in 2004.

No therapies for widespread use have yet emerged from the
agency, formally known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
(CIRM). But the agency is pushing hard. It could have a therapy on the market
within four years. The question is whether it will be something that is
perceived as affordable or something available only to the wealthy few.

CIRM is now expecting to be involved in 65 clinical trials
by 2020. One of those trials is currently in phase three, which puts the proposed treatment on the cusp of commercialization.

Not on the table, however, is what those therapies are
likely to cost consumers. The spending plan does not address the question of whether a
publicly financed agency should back development of therapies that could cost,
for example, $512,000. (See here and here.) Or whether it should focus on more affordable
treatments.

The issue of high cost of drug therapies has roiled the
medical community and the public for some years. The matter has now moved to a higher level and is not likely to vanish during the next five years, as it
has in the past. It is tied to the income inequality debate and the upsurge in
patient advocacy. (See here and here.)

The issue surfaced this week in the presidential campaign.
Democratic aspirant Hillary Clinton used words like “gouging” and “outrageous,”
causing biotech stock prices to drop. Republican presidential candidates used
the problem to attack Obamacare. Folks in the scientific community said they
were “shocked.”

This afternoon, a Google search on the term “high drug
prices” turned up 33.7 million results. “Outrage,” “huge spike,” “4,000 percent”
and “insanely high” were some of the words in the headlines.

The affordability question is not new to the California stem
cell agency. It popped up in the ballot campaign that created the agency in
2004 but has largely died down in recent years. (See here, here and here.)

It could surface again in the California legislature and elsewhere as
lawmakers see a public desire to curb perceived greedy pharmaceutical companies that prey on the weak and afflicted.

It is not a prospect that would be pleasant for the
California stem cell agency. And it would put a major damper on efforts to continue funding of the
agency from both public and private sources.

As they consider their strategic direction, the CIRM directors
of the agency may be well advised to move earlier rather than later on the
question of high prices and affordability. As Ben Franklin’s medical homily goes,

1 comment:

David,The costs of stem cell therapies are going to be high at first - not to gouge or even to pay back the cost of the research, but because the production, quality control, and delivery of cells for transplant is costly. I think we should follow the progress of personalized CAR-T therapy for cancers - it's very expensive now, but multiple companies are working on ways to make it less costly. If the price goes down, it bodes well for cost control of stem cell therapies. If it goes up, well...

About Me

The California Stem Cell Report is the only nongovernmental website devoted solely to the $3 billion California stem cell agency. The report is published by David Jensen, who worked for 22 years for The Sacramento Bee in a variety of editing positions, including executive business editor and special projects editor. He was the primary editor on the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum, which dealt with opposition to research on primates. Jensen served as a press aide in the 1974 campaign and first administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. (Time served: two years and one week.) He writes from his sailboat on the west coast of Mexico with occasional visits to land. Jensen began writing about the stem cell agency in 2005, noting that it is an unprecedented effort that uniquely combines big science, big business, big academia, big politics, religion, ethics and morality as well as life and death. The California Stem Cell Report has been identified as one of the best stem cell sites on the Internet. Its readership includes the media (both mainstream and science), a wide range of academic/research institutions globally, the NIH and California policy makers.